ABSTRACT
In this chapter, the interdisciplinary movement artist Eiko Otake pushes back against the encroaching of an academic term on artistic structures and institutions (commissions and grants, for example) and resists a blanket application of “research” to her artistic process. She cautions against undefined vocabulary in talking about non-verbal art. In calling much of what she does work rather than research, and in drawing attention to the choreographic and performance methods she has developed over her 50-year career, she emphasizes practice, practicality, and artistic rigor. Eiko’s chapter cautions dance practitioners and researchers to pay attention to the costs of legibility that come with adopting common terms without definition.
